I like early Suicidal Tendencies, way before Mike Muir became Cyco Myko.

I was in high school in the early 1990's when Green Day exploded and overnight all the kids started dying their hair green and wearing Rancid shirts. It was fucked up. Those kids would have never survived a real Punk/Hardcore show, like ST on the Join the Army tour.

The people I have known in local bands have failed in part because they were lazy. They were not willing to isolate or discipline themselves to excel. And they were clueless with the organizational/business aspect of it. They would have failed at anything they did.

Besides Neptune Towers and the ambient albums from Burzum, Ildjarn, and Beherit, I've always thought that some of the best "black ambient" music are some individual tracks from Black Metal albums. 'Summerlands' from Drawing Down the Moon and 'Prolog' from The Celtic Winter come to mind.